Following an Ancient Call – Christine Valters Paintner

What if we could listen
like the great salmon
who goes about its ordinary life
when suddenly something shifts.

It does not come as a thunderous
revelation, but a quiet knowing
you have been preparing all
your life to trust.

The path lived until now no longer
satisfies but the path ahead
seems thousands of miles
long, and your womb is heavy.

There is no refusing this ancient call,
and to know ourselves as not alone,
but part of generations before us who,
like the salmon, share in this inheritance.

You now hear only the rush of energy
that comes with starting the long
return home and the pull in the
blood which cannot be ignored.

I like to imagine the salmon
swimming across the ocean
(as if that weren’t daunting enough)
and after that endless voyage

it must face the mouth of the mighty river.
Does she hesitate, even for a moment?
Does he want to turn back to less turbulent waters?
But there is something ripening in their bellies.

Perhaps your list of pressing tasks is still long.
Leave it there fluttering in the breeze,
uncrossed, undone, unfinished,
to do the only thing you can do

which is to swim,
to be carried by the waves and tide
and to know when to let the current carry you
and when to fight it with all your strength,

and to know even this yes will
demand more than you were willing
to give: your life for the new birth,
what you think you know for

the ancient call home.

—Christine Valters Paintner (blog)

A portion of this poem is the inspirational quote on our Calendar this month and is especially significant to us since we will be visiting Maitland, Nova Scotia, Canada where my Mother’s maternal ancestors came from.

We will also be visiting Prince Edward Island, which is the setting for her favorite book, Anne of Green Gables.